Written in August 2017

On nights like this
I press my back up against the wall.
I let the edges of my bed indent my skin,
the space is too small for my limbs and your nightmares.

If you’d let me, we’d stay up all night,
and I’d paint galaxies on the back of your hands to remind you how inferior nightmares are.
But I cannot wake you or make the swirls in your breath go away,
so I shrink further back, I give you space.
There is nothing I can do to make it better.

Instead, I place soft fingers on your back
and write bright letters on the dark ceiling,
for you to see in a dream.
I turn to the moon for spelling
and to the stars for punctuation,
and wait for morning
in silence.

-Andrea